Blog > I no longer drink coffee, gimme real tea

I no longer drink coffee. I’m Italian, but I can’t tolerate it anymore—it smells bad to me, especially espresso. It’s been a year now since I stopped drinking coffee, and from that day on I haven’t even tasted it again, perhaps because I never really liked it in the first place. The decision to stop drinking coffee was born during a particularly stressful period, when I felt very prone to nervousness. Every morning, after my cup, I would start the day already unsettled by problems at work, until one day, on my wife’s advice, I decided not to reduce my coffee intake as she had suggested, but to avoid it completely—because, all things considered, maybe coffee had never truly appealed to me. From that day on, I went in search of an alternative that could sustain the habit of accompanying my days, and remembering a conversation with a friend, I decided to try tea—but real tea, the kind I was fortunate enough to buy at a well-known tea house in Yerevan. So I chose Sichuan green tea, then Oolong, then white tea known as “Silver Needles,” and from that moment on I realized that… I liked it.

When I drink tea, I feel like I’m doing something very important.

I’ve always loved broths made from wild herbs (my favorite is nettle decoction), and as a result I found in real tea a grace very similar to that of a green broth. So I became more and more interested in it: I began researching, buying ever more different varieties, and I discovered that not only did tea not make me nervous like coffee, but it also made me feel calmer and more focused. Everything else followed naturally.

A friend of mine from Tokyo let me taste Japanese tea, which, unlike Chinese tea, is steamed very early to stop oxidation, allowing the leaves to remain fresher as a result. I must say that this last discovery changed my life. Japanese tea has become my favorite drink, because it is a pleasure to drink: it is thick, green, oily, it tastes of nature, it is good for you, it is rich in sometimes legendary properties, it is surrounded by an immense culture (as is, of course, Chinese tea, from which it originates), it exists in thousands of different varieties, it enhances concentration, relaxes and awakens at the same time. I love Sencha and Matcha, from Sayama, Uji, Shizuoka... My cupboard is full, and without it I find it hard to imagine my days. The day begins with a matcha, continues through sencha, genmaicha, and gyokuro, and ends with aracha or kukicha (because they contain less caffeine and more mineral salts)—a ritual that has become, for me, a fundamental way of life.

Furthermore, tea represents a moment of slow pause, and I love slowness; it’s not like espresso, which by its nature is quick and fleeting. Tea requires time, and I am someone who likes to take their time, one way or another. In tea, I have found the olfactory, sensory, psychological, spiritual and intellectual pleasure all in a single moment.